


Camisade

by littlecloud



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Feelings about the power going out, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, Maybe?? More like Hurt/Hurt for Comfort but that's not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecloud/pseuds/littlecloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the lights went out, he had to learn how to glow in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camisade

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! A quick warning before you read; there is a considerable amount of violence in this piece. Talk of blood and bruises, etcetera. I did not use the archive warnings for it, because there have been episodes of the show itself that are more gory. However, if that upsets you, feel free not to read. Bass and Charlie's relationship is...well, complicated. 
> 
> ♥

After the lights went out, he had to learn how to glow in the dark.

The best way to do this was with glass – rounded shards, a bowl for the bright red of his blood. A sort of lens to gaze through. It would be blurred, but with just enough color to take the murk, the void, out from the air.

That is why he fell in love with Charlie. She hated him, and it was passionate, and she believed from the bottom of her heart that he looked beautiful in red, that his irises only matched her brilliant sapphire shade when the eye sockets were sprinkled in the gold of a bruise. Charlie would not ever let him live in black and white – just black and blue. Like other couples leave flowers on the kitchen table for their significant other to find, she’d hide used swords in her sleeping bag. Instead of breathing in her hair, brown sugar and sweat, he would taste gore in the morning, waiting for her to come back.

At night, he would fight her on purpose; he imagined it was similar to giving a blood transfusion. Except the blades made blood and glass, and the blood and glass created lanterns. The only way he could sleep. He was not scared of the dark, just so, _so_ tired of it.

Then, he could scavenge for pieces, drops of himself in daylight, when it mattered again. When he was a person and not just an organ donor to save his sanity. Charlie would bandage him up, feed him well. She would even kiss the contusions, if he stood still for long enough. But it was never gentle, and never quick; she kissed hard, sucked hard, reminding him that she created that ache in the first place, that those are her places on his skin.

He tried to touch her brand once – a haphazard scream of pink on her wrist, the contour of an M.

His M.

She hit him, dead across the jaw. Again, the temple. Again, the bridge of his nose. It was okay, though, they call them shiners for a reason.

He fell in love with Charlie, because with her, there was no blackout. There was always red: big pillowy bite-marks on his neck, budding roses, blushing girls experiencing their first menstrual cycle. There was always the mauve stain of fingertips pressing into flesh. They clung like parasites to each other – her drinking blood out of him, then spitting it back onto his shoes. Bones cracking like a jar of pearls that gave her riches.

Charlie was too young to understand shattered mirrors as anything but weapons, or wildfires for anything but warmth, or kindness being anything more than not breaking the zipper of someone’s jeans when you remove them. Maybe Charlie was too young to understand that she could love anyone, too. The lights went out, there was hatred, a perfume of death and cinders everywhere. That was all she knew. 

But New Vegas showed her one thing; he needed a lens to tint the wasteland, give him night-vision, and he would only stay safe if it came from her fists. She didn't mind.


End file.
